<div dir="ltr">As someone who reads and votes on Double Union membership applications, I can tell you right now that the single most common phrase we see on them is "I went to Noisebridge...once."<div><br></div><div>
Almost all of these women tried Noisebridge first, and didn't feel welcome here. And there are a LOT of them. They came out of the woodwork so fast that we had to shut down applications after just a few months. Double Union can't take them all in, our space is just too small. So, if you think we need more members, there's a giant untapped market of really passionate, active people who want this. Make Noisebridge more welcoming to women and you'll fill rosters fast.</div>
<div><br></div><div>Oh, and by the way: referring to us as "females" is generally one of those signals that tend to make women go "NOPE!" It's also not, strictly speaking, accurate; DU has a lot of trans women who feel pretty alienated by that term.</div>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 11:24 AM, Al Sweigart <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:asweigart@gmail.com" target="_blank">asweigart@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">The way I see it, there's plenty of hackerspaces in the bay area that men are welcome to, and UU itself has open house nights open to men. And from the fact that they had to stop accepting new members for now because they were flooded with new people, there's plenty of demand for a women-only hackerspace.</div>
<div class="HOEnZb"><div class="h5">
<div class="gmail_extra"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 11:18 AM, Ronald Cotoni <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:setient@gmail.com" target="_blank">setient@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">I am not. It is cool and 100% necessary due to other circumstances I stated above. Its a place female identifying people can go and not feel threatened and just work on cool stuff. It is great!</div><div>
<div><div class="gmail_extra">
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 11:07 AM, Jessica Ross <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:jessica.r.ross@gmail.com" target="_blank">jessica.r.ross@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
<div dir="ltr">Feminist doesn't imply "only other females", just that it respects women.<div><br></div><div>Hm, after going to the website, the mission statement strongly implies women-only. I'm almost offended about that.</div>
<div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Ronald Cotoni <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:setient@gmail.com" target="_blank">setient@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">I am with what hep said. I am also with Naomi. This is a hackerspace. Lets hack the system and figure out how to solve problems. I am also with Al that I feel sad that UU had to even exist because noisebridge was not safe enough or good enough. I also understand that some people just like working with other females and don't even want to bother at this stage of their lives. I just feel it was mostly a response to Noisebridge not being safe and not the latter. </div>
<div class="gmail_extra"><div><div><br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:49 AM, Naomi Most <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:pnaomi@gmail.com" target="_blank">pnaomi@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
I am openly biased towards anarchism and lack of top-down control.<br>
But we can't keep shouting down the idea of "oversight" to address<br>
problems that Noisebridge has had for YEEAAARRRSSS when we've<br>
certainly given the Noisebridge traditional methods that long to fix<br>
things.<br>
<br>
For the record, I don't agree with the idea of direct<br>
people-management or in changing the way we arrive at decisions at<br>
Noisebridge. My idea of a positive change would be to have the board<br>
managing facilities and facilitating participation -- e.g. forming<br>
working groups. I believe these improvements will make a lot of the<br>
other crap die down naturally.<br>
<br>
And as it turns out, that's what we're going to do first.<br>
<div><div><br>
On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:46 AM, hep <<a href="mailto:dis@gruntle.org" target="_blank">dis@gruntle.org</a>> wrote:<br>
> And that would be different from what noisebridge has had in the last 5yr<br>
> how? as it stands, many women do not feel safe at noisebridge because of<br>
> sexual assault and the past somewhat failure to deal with it in a manner<br>
> where women felt safe and listened to at nb. many valuable contributing<br>
> people have left nb because of its failure to address major infrastructure<br>
> problems. if having a more active board helps to stop sexual abuse and makes<br>
> the culture more welcoming to those who would positively contribute, then i<br>
> am 100% down with active management. i would like noisebridge to be<br>
> somewhere i can bring friends to interest them in hacking, bring my<br>
> childrens' school championship robotics team to inspire them to the next<br>
> victory, not a place where i am fearful to go on my own because there are no<br>
> protections or infrastructure to ensure basic safety.<br>
><br>
> -hep<br>
><br>
><br>
> On Thu, Mar 13, 2014 at 10:09 AM, Torrie Fischer <<a href="mailto:tdfischer@hackerbots.net" target="_blank">tdfischer@hackerbots.net</a>><br>
> wrote:<br>
>><br>
>><br>
>> I think it is important to note that in the context of a hackerspace,<br>
>> there is<br>
>> a difference between managing the infrastructure and managing the people<br>
>> who<br>
>> hack on the infrastructure.<br>
>><br>
>> From experience, just saying "active management" easily leads to bad times<br>
>> and, uh, rather verbose mailing list threads.<br>
>><br>
> --<br>
> hep<br>
> hepic photography || <a href="http://www.hepic.net" target="_blank">www.hepic.net</a><br>
> <a href="mailto:dis@gruntle.org" target="_blank">dis@gruntle.org</a> || <a href="tel:415%20867%209472" value="+14158679472" target="_blank">415 867 9472</a><br>
><br>
</div></div><div>> _______________________________________________<br>
> Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
> <a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net" target="_blank">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
> <a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
><br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
</div><span><font color="#888888">--<br>
Naomi Theora Most<br>
<a href="mailto:naomi@nthmost.com" target="_blank">naomi@nthmost.com</a><br>
<a href="tel:%2B1-415-728-7490" value="+14157287490" target="_blank">+1-415-728-7490</a><br>
<br>
skype: nthmost<br>
<br>
<a href="http://twitter.com/nthmost" target="_blank">http://twitter.com/nthmost</a><br>
</font></span><div><div>_______________________________________________<br>
Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net" target="_blank">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
<a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
</div></div></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div></div></div><div>-- <br>Ronald Cotoni<div>Systems Engineer</div>
</div></div>
<br>_______________________________________________<br>
Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net" target="_blank">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
<a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br></div></div><div dir="ltr">Jessica R. Ross<br><a href="mailto:jessica.r.ross@gmail.com" target="_blank">jessica.r.ross@gmail.com</a></div>
</div>
</blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br>Ronald Cotoni<div>Systems Engineer</div>
</div>
</div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net" target="_blank">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
<a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div>
</div></div><br>_______________________________________________<br>
Noisebridge-discuss mailing list<br>
<a href="mailto:Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net">Noisebridge-discuss@lists.noisebridge.net</a><br>
<a href="https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss" target="_blank">https://www.noisebridge.net/mailman/listinfo/noisebridge-discuss</a><br>
<br></blockquote></div><br></div>